Health Myths December 17, 2015December 18, 2015 Get plenty of sleep, plenty of moderate exercise — walk a lot! — don’t eat much (saves time, money, and the planet), but do eat loads of raw fruit and vegetables . . . avoid stress, even as you engage in mankind’s struggle . . . but as to the rest? The vitamin supplements, anti-oxidants and all that? Consider The Science Myths That Will Not Die, from Nature, The International Weekly Journal of Science. It may save you money. (Thanks, Jim!) Peter: “WheelTug would have prevented this gruesome tragedy yesterday: Man Dies After Being Sucked Into Aircraft Engine At Mumbai Airport.” ☞ Yikes. I botched yesterday’s link to the family of elephants who, quite wonderfully, show up in a Zambian hotel lobby each year; but the estimable Paul Lerman had no trouble accessing it anyway — and reports that it brought immediately to mind an Elizabeth Taylor film in which elephants walk through a different lobby, and in a decidedly less affable way. Trailer here. Have a great weekend, Monday: Evenwel.
I Love This: Building Homes From Plastic Bottles . . . December 16, 2015December 13, 2015 . . . filled with sand, laid on their side like bricks . . . look! . . . fire-proof, bullet-proof and allegedly 20 times as strong as brick. All at a quarter the cost of regular homes. Waste not, want not.
WheelTug – A Love Story December 15, 2015December 13, 2015 Long-time readers know the WheelTug story and may even have bet — with money they can truly afford to lose — on a few shares of its grandparent, Borealis. As usual, “the project inches along.” And, I like to think, attracts ever broader interest. Toward which end, whether at the Paris Air Show this past summer or the e-taxi conference I attended last spring, or wherever else, they’re always looking for clever ways to demonstrate their value proposition: saving airlines and their passengers what could ultimately be 20 minutes per flight. And so I share herewith “As the Aircraft Turns” — a presentation made to considerable applause at Marketforce two weeks ago. To quote the producers — tongues firmly in cheek — “As the Aircraft Turns is ultimately a tale of redemption. However, like all great epics, there is uncommon pleasure in the journey, not just the destination.”
Great $10 Last-Minute Gift Idea December 14, 2015December 13, 2015 There are a few hours of Hanukkah left! I think this link should still work: 3 months of just about every good magazine under the sun for a flat ten bucks. Or give it to yourself! Or get a head start on last-minute Christmas shopping. Or give something else. I don’t care. Just don’t make the same embarrassing mistake the Koch brothers did — Koch Brothers Get Each Other Same Election For Christmas. (Thanks, Brian!) How far we’ve come. Salt Lake City elects a gay mayor and it doesn’t even create a stir? (I’m just hearing about it now???) It was not that long ago that Utah shut down high school clubs statewide — all of them, including the chess club, the gardening club, and the Bible club — rather than allow a gay-straight club (as told in this wonderful 1998 documentary). That was big national news. This is ridiculous and cheesy — who knows whether these “12 shocking celebrity net worths” are even accurate? — but, well (sheepishly) . . . it’s hard not to look.
Binge and Cringe December 10, 2015 You might think my erratic posting schedule is the bi-product of my fascination with food “expiration dates.” Lately, for example, I have discovered that an open, unrefrigerated bottle of extra virgin olive oil dated July 11, 2008 . . . while perhaps not still entirely virgin . . . serves to drizzle an avocado just fine. But, no, it’s not food poisoning that’s to blame — just flat-out irresponsibility. So for this long weekend . . . (What? you hadn’t heard? Today is the 200th anniversary of the Senate’s creation of a “select committee on finance and uniform national currency” — reason enough for a sometime financial writer to take a long weekend. And National Tango Day in Buenos Aires, Indiana Day in Indiana, and International Mountain Day all over the world.) . . . I give you two things: First, compliments of the New York Times, the 10 best TV series you missed in 2015, with links to access and binge. Enjoy! Second, the thinking of one of the smartest guys around, Jeremy Grantham, in one of whose private timber partnerships I’ve for a decade been an investor, but whom I first encountered 45 years ago when the world was young and he had the good sense, unlike most at the time, having attended a meeting at National Student Marketing Corporation, not to invest. With respect to the general level of U.S. equities today, he sounds a note of caution. (The first of the two articles in the link will interest you, also, if you are an investor in emerging markets.) Are there mountains in Indiana? If so, tango at least partway up one for me as I celebrate our national currency.
It Won’t Be Trump . . . December 9, 2015December 8, 2015 . . . not least because our economy is in no 1933-style German depression. (Though it was sure headed that way when the Republicans — who inherited eight great Clinton economic years and a surplus — in 2009 handed us back a $1.5 trillion deficit, soaring bankruptcies, a plunging stock market, and job losses of 800,000 a month.) Yet web sites like this one — “first they came for the Jews” — seem topical, given the Donald’s latest pronouncements. And given his having kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. (He was free to do so! That hardly “proves” anything! But it’s still a valid data point as we assess the field of talent vying to lead us and the world forward.) Writes one worried commenter, Ruth Mays, on that web site: Yes, some were seduced by charisma. My mother heard the crowds in the street chanting as Hitler marched by, and wondered how anybody could fall for him. Many people were out of work . . . and he promised them all jobs with good wages. He promised that the trains would run on time, there would be safety for all. He promised that Germany would again be at the top [“made great again?” — A.T.], no longer humiliated by the French [“the Mexicans and Chinese, whose leaders are so much smarter than our stupid, stupid leaders?” — A.T.]. He had such a command of rhetoric that many people believed him. . . . My grandfather almost ended up in a camp because he refused to stop treating his Jewish patients. . . . Hitler started out as a buffoon like Trump, but he managed to attract enough people to protect him. I sincerely hope I am wrong about us, but fear and propaganda are powerful forces. Too many people watch nothing but Fox news. It won’t be Trump — yet he is doing real harm to the country even so, bringing out the worst instincts in a lot of frightened, angry people. If it’s Cruz, it will be almost as bad. In some ways perhaps even worse. If it’s one of the others, let’s not forget that: > They all favor shifting yet more wealth and power to the top tenth of one-percent (cutting their income tax and eliminating the estate tax on their billionheirs) . . . at the expense of everyone else. Even “moderate” Jeb, when he was my governor in Florida, first halved, then eliminated the only tax that applied just to the best-off while drastically cutting drug treatment programs and fighting efforts to reduce classroom size. To today’s Republicans, those are sound governing priorities. To most thinking people, they are not. > They all would get to replace three or four octogenarian Justices with 48-year-old conservatives in the mold of Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Sam Alito, just as Bush 41 and 43 did. All good people, sincere in their beliefs; but I prefer progressives.
Kiwi, Parsnips, iPhone December 8, 2015December 7, 2015 Bryan: “Got an iPhone? Under SETTINGS go to CELLULAR. Where it says ‘Enable LTE,’ change that to ‘Voice & Data.’ (It probably shows ‘Data Only’ now.) Call quality — especially between two iPhones set this way — will be considerably improved at no extra cost.” ☞ Seems to work for me. Not certain about the cost, but have never known Bryan to be wrong. And now, for the cooking segment of our show. Not only CAN you freeze kiwis, as I just discovered — I think you probably should. Back in April, I was not sure how this would turn out. And this weekend, when I finally thawed them, they became all squooshy. I cut them in half expecting the worst — but it was a miracle! Turns out, you can just suck each kiwi half from its skin with a single slurp . . . no peeling! . . . and the taste is outstanding. (April’s apple cider, salmon, and turkey, by mild contrast, were all perfectly okay once thawed, I am pleased to report — waste not, want not — but definitely not improved by the experience.) I copped to my ignorance of parsnips last week. John Carroll: “It is the war against Crispness which kept you from knowing about parsnips. Mos’ everthin’ kin be explained by Pogo.” ☞ An enjoyable tale. First, for those too young to have known the comic strip, you meet Pogo (“we have met the enemy and he is us”). And then you are treated to the misheard lyrics of “The Twelve Days Of Crispness,” appropriate to the season. (Happy Chanukah, by the way!) Ho, ho, ho. And parsnips are good! Enjoy.
A Conservative and a Liberal Displeased With Republicans December 7, 2015December 6, 2015 Liberal Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman is displeased, as he writes here, because “we may be doomed.” (Sounds dramatic, but such is their shared concern that 150 world leaders convened to address it last week in Paris.) And if we are doomed, he writes, it’s the fault of the Republicans — and the media’s unwillingness to call a spade a spade. (Sounds partisan, but hear him out.) Conservative Cuban-American Republican billionaire Mike Fernandez is so angry with the current state of Republican affairs that he’s purchased newspaper ads likening Donald Trump to certain notorious mid-20th Century fascist dictators and pledging to vote for Hillary, if that proves to be the choice. Read it here.
Martin Shkreli May Be The Worst Guy Ever December 4, 2015 Or at least the quintessential sociopath. First he got famous for raising the price of a 63-year-old drug, Daraprim, from$13.50 a pill to $750 — 5,500% — rapacious barely begins to describe it — and now this amazing story. Which will surely cure you of any further thought of shorting stocks. And likely add your voice to those demanding a better funded, more aggressive SEC and a federal government that negotiates drug prices. And have you thought about parsnips? Until one arrived at my door in a box filled with ingredients for meals I was supposed to make myself — “prep time, 10-15 minutes, cook time, 35 minutes” (like that was ever gonna happen) — I’m not certain I had ever even seen a parsnip. Sure, they must have crossed my field of vision at the supermarket; and doubtless even been ingested from time to time along with other unidentified ingredients. But here was a whole, raw parsnip, about half a pound, vaguely like a yam, though apparently more of the carrot family — a root — all by itself in a plastic baggie labeled “1 Parsnip.” And I am here to tell you that, microwaving it on a plate (prep time: 2 seconds, cook time 6 or 8 minutes) and then salting, peppering, and eating it was just swell. So parsnips now take their place alongside beets as a vegetable that just does not get its due. Mmm, mmm, good.
It Won’t Be Trump December 3, 2015December 3, 2015 Three months ago, I suggested UPIP at 77 cents. Someone smart had bought a whole lot privately at $1. It’s now back up to that level in the public market — I know, I bought some more yesterday at $1 — not least because the company, which owns a library of patents, seems successfully to have sued to enforce one of them. Which could presage more such successes — perhaps they know what they’re doing! — and cause others to seek negotiated settlements with UPIP rather than endure the same fate. (It’s not nice to violate someone else’s patents. ) Note that UPIP’s CEO was formerly Apple’s head of Intellectual Property. He’d likely not have taken this job if he didn’t sense upside. And, no, it still won’t be Trump. (Click here in case you haven’t already seen the devastating ad of Trump mocking the handicapped.) But, boy, is he ever bringing out the worst in people. And speaking of the Republican front runner, Gene Robinson was particularly eloquent in a segment titled, “Trump Expands Lead, Causing GOP To Panic” on yesterday’s Morning Joe: All this, “O woe is us” from the Republican establishment is a bit ironic, because in fact the entire party has helped create the atmosphere in which Donald Trump thrives. You know, “Barack Obama’s the worst thing to happen to this country since World War II or since whatever” . . . you know, “Everything is going to hell, we have no national defense, we’re weak in the world, we’re this, we’re that.” It created, or helped create, this anger, this resentment, this frustration, that Trump so adroitly channels and is using, and then they’re like, “O woe is us, what happened? what happened to the voters? They’ve lost their minds.” Well, you helped drive ’em crazy. I refer you again to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s prepared remarks: “By any standard, Barack Obama has been a disaster for out country.” Right? He inherited from his Republican predecessor two wars, soaring unemployment, a crashing stock market, crashing housing prices, zooming bankruptcies, $4 gasoline, a $1.5 trillion deficit, an economy teetering toward global depression . . . and here we are after seven years with Obama — who may not even have been born America! we should build a wall! look at the thousands of cheering Muslims in Jersey City! our leaders are so stupid! — and guess what? The economic ship has been righted, the deficit slashed by two-thirds,* the ground wars ended, the gas price halved, the American Ebola death toll — that so dominated the weeks leading up to the mid-terms when we should have been talking about Republican refusal to raise the minimum wage, pass comprehensive immigration reform, and revitalize our crumbling infrastructure — zero . . . and, oh, yeah, LGBT got equal rights** and 320 million Americans can no longer be denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition (and the next Democrat, we hope, will turn his or her attention to outrageous drug prices — see tomorrow’s post) and relations have been opened with Cuba, China has agreed to work to combat climate change, and the Iranians are dismantling their most advanced centrifuges and disposing of 98% of their enriched uranium. But what we need now is Donald Trump? Or another born-again Texan in the White House — Ted Cruz — whose idea of compromise is shutting down the government? Or any of the others, all of whom agree we should eliminate the estate tax on billionheirs while continuing to shrink the minimum wage?*** Really? *Once again shrinking relative to the economy as a whole. **Well, except for employment, housing, credit and such, which the Republicans block. ***By holding it constant while life gets ever more expensive.